Just a few notes: the real title is still secret because it's a big spoiler by itself, so will wait until the game is in alpha to reveal it
As you noticed, some characters aren't present in the base game romance. It was quite hard to put new stuff, and still feature the old characters (existing romance will continue like in Planet Stronghodl 2). I wish I could have put ALL of them in one single game, but then it would have been 360k words long, require 1 year to make, and would have costed $40... and that's not good
So for now what I can say is that while I am still using the terms of "base game" and "expansion", the expansion will continue the story and will be a stand alone game (not requiring the first one, except to understand better the story). Think of it as of two different books, I mean featuring the same world / settings, but two different stories. This means that in the base game, Loren WILL be present (albeit not for long... mouhaha) but you can't romance her. Same for Mesphit and all the other characters. They will make an appearance and maybe even fight for you, but they won't be in the active party.

Of course, everything is still work in progress! I have a plot outline done by a new writer (which was quite helpful), but is just a guideline for Aleema to follow (and we used it to decide some character personalities, some romance CGs, etc) but we'll probably change stuff as we get to work on it for real... next year! Hope you won't be disappointed by the expected release date, but wanted to play safe

Although I just want to ask: How much art will be in each romance? Will it be like the last one, which is just the ending CG per romance, or maybe a handful of CGs per romance? I remember you mentioning there WILL be more, but I was kind of thinking that you were talking about implementing CGs in cutscenes too. And with all these romances, plus non-romance CGs... that's pretty much a crapload of art.

I find the amount of CGs in the last game to be quite few, honestly, and I can point out some scenes that I'm sure to have gone off better with a CG. But since each piece of art's quite time consuming (and costly), well, either way's okay, I think XD

For now, I'm not sure, have yet to finish the base lineart romances, then needs to be colored (and there are SO MANY! haha). But since the game is scheduled for a very late release next year, I think might be able to add more CG scenes. In general though, also CGs for the main plot for the most important events, not just for the romances. One thing I'd like to have is a different pose for each character during the camp talk, and then maybe more scenes as the game is written.
I know to which expansion scenes you might be referring to. I'd like to do be able to have some CGs with Mesphit bathing naked on the lake or Chambara sneaking on the camp naked and so on

Yep, those eyes-through-hair are far too creepy. Also, Samaras looks rather feminine, while Selith is masculine. At first glance I assumed Samaras to be a girl and Selith a guy (likely Mesphit's rival!). Nook also looks effeminate.

Nook IS effeminate indeed, so that's OK
I don't think Samaras is more effeminate than Mesphit for example. Selith looks a bit masculine but I think is fine. Lydia's face is totally wrong for her personality though. Aleema is going to fix it, we werere joking that the colorist was in "zombie mode" because for no apparent reason he started drawing those strong strokes of colors below the eyes, making them look scary (as you can see they weren't present in the first game, like Loren or Karen sprites).

A different pose for each character will be nice. =) Some scenarios with their respective poses were way too awkward, especially those romance scenes. The dialogue is heating up while they're standing there in front of you, holding their weapons... Seriously, I was like "GET AWAY FROM MEEE"

Not just in the expansion, lol. There were some in the main game too The romance scenes would have been hotter with more CGs.

Effeminate? Omg I love effeminate. Actually I love anyone that looks like the opposite gender. They look really appealing At least to me

Happy Birthday then!
Yes, will be a long wait. I want to say that depending how Planet Stronghold 2 goes, it might be released sooner, but knowing how long takes to make a RPG, I wanted to put a more realistic estimate